An afternoon in Harpers Ferry, WV

Today, Aaron and I were able to have a day off, so we wanted to fill it with something that we've been wanting to do for a while.

So, the beautiful blue skies and comfortable temperatures led us over to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia for the afternoon.  We made the drive (about an hour) after church, and on the way there, we were able to see lots of fall foliage, which was an added bonus to making the trip.

Our destination was a tiny town in West Virginia where Maryland and Virginia are also within view.  It's situated on the corner (wish I had a better word than corner, but 7th grade geography terms are currently escaping me) where the Potomac River splits into the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers.  The riverside was a great place to walk around and take some fun pictures!  We also loved walking on the stone streets and steps to visit some of the shops, restaurants and museums.  At the end of the night, we even spent some time enjoying the simplicity of skipping rocks on the river by the railroad tracks (turns out it's not just a song).

Here are a few pics from our afternoon/evening:

Hanging around on the Shenandoah River.

A Catholic church at the top of a hill, with train tracks down below.

The Potomac River.

It's just about the halfway point of the Appalachian Trail.

The train tunnel.

Steps up to the church.

Some steps to a house in town.  We thought they looked pretty cool!

(Isn't my husband, handsome?)

The whole town was nestled pretty much on the side of a mountain.  Steep walkways and steps everywhere, it was pretty neat.

Skippin' rocks.

And a train went by! (I love trains for those of you who are unaware of my fetish.)

The mountain turned red as the sun started to set.

We caught a quick picture of the West Virginia sunset as we were driving away.

The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth 

 from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.  

From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.

Psalm 50:1-2

Have a great week!

a day of rest and catching up

Whew!  I made it through this week!  I won't lie, there were moments where I wasn't sure that I would live to make my next blog post, but I did, and Praise the Lord for that!

Things are crazy on the home front.  The general election is less than 3 weeks away, my caseload at Georgetown skyrocketed this week, midterms were looming, we have been traveling, and lots of great visitors have been in town.  I'm wiping the sweat off my brow just thinking of all that is going on.

But today is a different story.  Today, I get to do laundry (and yes I'm excited about that), go to Target, and do a legit grocery shop for the first time in weeks.  I also slept in 'til 8:00 AM and it was a beautiful thing.  Also on the agenda on this day of rest (again, yes I am finding grocery shopping, laundry, and cleaning restful these days...): BLOGGING!  To catch everyone up on what's been going on in our crazy lives, of course.

Let's start with last weekend.  Last weekend Aaron and I went to New York City (again, yes!) Thursday through Saturday.  Aaron had some work to do there and I was invited to tag along.  We stayed in a beautiful hotel on 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan (The Renaissance Hotel 57).  This was the view from our room...the Chrysler Building!

So on Friday, Aaron was pretty occupado with work, so I tooled around the city on my own.  I did some shopping (well, more like browsing) and then met up with Aaron for lunch at a place called Brooklyn Diner.  This is what we ate:

(Don't worry, we shared that monster of a hot dog.)

 You even got a pin to sport after eating it!

After lunch, Aaron had more work to do so I made my way to the Museum of Modern Art to take some time to look around.  I decided after going that I kinda like modern art. 

A few modern paintings:

 

Some good old fashioned impressionism:

 Nope, still don't like Picasso:

 I was feeling patriotic, so I took a picture of this painted flag.  Apparently, there were only 48 states in the union when it was painted.  That, or, the artist chalked the mistake up to being "modern":

And it's October, so of course I took a picture of a pumpkin:

When Aaron finally finished work for the day we went to Greenwich Village to eat some dinner at Piola.  yum yum yum.  I had the best gnocchi I ever did have there... oOo, and a delicious beverage called a sgroppino (lemon ice cream and vodka).  You should check it out if you're ever around there.

After our yummy dinner, we went to Broadway Theater to see one of the newer shows, called Promises, Promises.  Sean Hayes (better known as "Jack" from Will&Grace), and Kristen Chenoweth were the stars and they put on a great show!

On Saturday, we found an awesome breakfast place called Palace Restaurant on 57th Street near our hotel.  (I'm mostly documenting this for myself so I can look this up when we want to go back there, but you should try it out, too).  Basically, when Aaron and I go to NYC, we eat our way through the city.  

After a big breakfast we spent some time perusing about Central Park.  We saw all sorts of parts of the park that we didn't get to see when we were there before.  Some of the sights:

I didn't realize NYC had a "mall" of their own, but this is it (no shopping stores here, either):

Can't remember the name of these towers, but Steven Spielberg, Diane Keaton, Madonna, and Bruce Willis have homes here:

Columbus Day was only 2 days away so I took a picture of ole' Chris:

Just some beautiful trees:

Bethesda Fountain:

And then we went to Macy's of course, the greatest place ever.  I made sure to hit almost all the floors this time, especially the ones that had shoes on sale.

I also can't get over the wooden escalators.  They make me feel nostalgic for some reason.

And as normalcy would have it, we ate some lunch at another delicious place, called Maui Tacos.  I will be replicating their tacos this week for dinner.  New rule when visiting new places: always ask the locals where to eat.  The cashier at Gap helped us with this one.

And then we were just walking down the street, and WAIT!  IS THAT...?

Calyn Reber!?!?

Why, yes it was.  And while this picture was totally staged, and we did have plans to meet up in NYC on Saturday (because her and Kenley were in the area for a wedding and had planned to visit us in DC afterwards), it was still funny to see her across the crosswalk from me in a totally different city.  For those of you who don't know who Calyn is, she was my roommate in Tallahassee :)

So after some strolling about with the soon-to-be Stringers (aka Calyn and Kenley), we all hopped in the car and made the road trip together back home to DC.  Starting with the Lincoln Tunnel.  Which is kind of scary:

Me and Calyn, reunited!

As any good fans should, all the way home we were refreshing our Blackberries and pestering our families to get updates on the score of the Florida State game.  It was fun to road trip with great company AND "watch" FSU beat Miami at the same time!  So all the next day we walked around the city sporting our Florida State gear with pride.  This pic is at the FDR Memorial, one of my favorites in DC:

When the weekend was over, Calyn and Kenley had to return to their home, and Aaron and I had to go back to the craziness of our lives.  But it won't be too long 'til we see them again because they're WEDDING is in less than 2 months.  (Which also means the election will be over and school will be slowing down, so we're excited times 3.)

Nevertheless, this is the latest and greatest from the Wilson adventures.  Coming up this weekend: pedicure with Hallie!  Aaron's boss from Barcelona comes into town!  Youth group at Ambassador Bible Church (which we are now helping out with).

But for now, laundry and cleaning and grocery shopping it is.  Ciao!

Kickin' Off October!

Aaron and I had a brief conversation the other day about exactly what marks the beginning of fall.  Here are the top 5 factors that were in the running for determining the commencement of fall:

1) Cooler weather.

2) Football season.

3) The actual calendar date of fall equinox.

4) The arrival of pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks.

OR 5) When the leaves are beginning to change.

I mostly wanted to know this "single-most important factor" because I would otherwise be living in denial that summer has gone and fall has come all the way into November.  And that would in no way be fair to my Autumn Leaves and Autumn Wreath Yankee Candles that have been sitting in the back of a cabinet for 10 months.  Or my autumn-colored dish towels.

All this being said, I can no longer deny the arrival of fall.  We are in the 40s at night, college football is in full swing, calendar dates of note have already passed, some of the leaves are turning, and I had my very first pumpkin spice latte of the season yesterday.

Don't get me wrong, I love fall, but it is a little bittersweet, as it marks a long, slow slide into another winter season.  Kindof like getting the most delicious dessert but slightly resenting it because you know you're fixin' to devour it and then it will be gone...

And while I can't wait to wear a coat and some boots again (and feel some weather cool enough to start up that fireplace), I'm really praying that the snow is a little more modest this year (like measured in inches instead of feet would be a good start).

So - factors aside - we have determined that our "annual" visit with our friends for Seminole Football would "officially" kick off the season for us this year.

This weekend, some great friends from college (Aaron's old roommate Dan and our good friends MaryAnn and Joe) came up for our "second annual" Florida State away game trip.  (Which wasn't too much of a trip for us since it was only 2 hours down the road at UVA in Charlottesville, VA.)  We had a great time!!  (A birthday shoutout goes to my great girlfriends Amanda and Jill who couldn't be there with us but were there in spirit!  Missed you ladies but hope you had a GREAT day!)  I'd say October is off to a good start.

Here are are a few pics from Scott Stadium at UVA:

Me and the boo.

Dan the man.

Me and Hallie (oh and "bourbon" in the gray there)

All of us :)

In summary, Happy Fall and Go 'Noles!